Page 61 of A Sinful Viscount's Mistletoe Affair
She pulled her cloak over her shoulders and padded downstairs, hoping not to meet anyone on her way. It was so early, anyhow, that most of the guests would still be fast asleep, especially those who had stayed up late into the night, dancing and enjoying the pleasures of the ball. She realized, though, that she even wanted to avoid the servants. She could scarcely bear the shame of being the subject of gossip throughout the whole household.
She entered the kitchen, made herself a drink, and was about to return to her room when she heard a sob from the front parlour.
Tentatively, she pushed the door open. Curled up in the window seat, wrapped in a blanket, and weeping convulsively, she saw Felicity.
Felicity looked up at her, wiping her eyes. “Isabella,” she whispered. “What are you doing awake so early?”
Isabella approached her. “I could say the same for you,” she replied. “Could you not sleep?”
Felicity shook her head. “It is all too terrible,” she said, her voice choked with another sob. “I have not slept a wink all night.”
Isabella looked at her in confusion, feeling a flicker of anger as she remembered seeing Felicity and Sebastian locked in a passionate embrace on the terrace. “But you have got what you wanted? Sebastian will have to marry you. Aren’t you happy? I would have thought you would be delighted.”
Felicity stared up at her. “It is all rather more complicated than that,” she responded, then burst into a fresh flurry of tears. Her shoulders shook as she cried.
Isabella scarcely knew what to do. Felicity had ruined everything for her and won the hand of the man she loved, yet here she was weeping as if her heart would break. There must be more going on than met the eye.
She sat down next to Felicity and took a sip of her drink. “I think perhaps you should tell me everything from the very beginning, Felicity.”
Felicity cleared her throat. “I am not proud of what I have done, Isabella,” she said softly.
Isabella felt another flare of anger. “Well, perhaps you should not have done it then, whatever makes you feel so sad and ashamed!” Her heart twisted at the thought that perhaps Sebastian actually did love Felicity, and everything that had happened between the two of them had been a lie. Maybe Felicity was his true love, and Isabella was simply a toy to be played with and discarded. But nothing made sense. What was it that Felicity had done?
Felicity bit her lip. “I know now that I should not have done any of it,” she admitted. “But I was so envious of you! Your life has been much easier than mine, and you always had everything you wanted.”
Isabella frowned. “I did not realize that you resented me so much, Felicity. I thought we were friends.”
Felicity hung her head. “I let my envy overtake me completely, and now everything is a disaster! I never meant all this to happen.”
“Tell me what actually has happened,” Isabella said, trying to remain patient. “What is it that you have done?” She did not want to lose her temper entirely with Felicity, as clearly she had something important to tell her but was struggling to get to the point.
“My father made me do it,” Felicity said softly. “That whole incident with Sebastian on the terrace. Yes, I was jealous of you and him. I could see that you were falling in love, and I wanted him for myself. But I knew that he would never look at me twice.
The only way to entangle him in a scandal was to throw myself at him, literally.” She paused and sniffed. “It was so mortifying. I had to lie in front of everyone to say that he had tried to seduce me when it was me all along.”
Isabella shook her head in disbelief. A wave of relief hit her as she realized that Sebastian did not love Felicity. He had been entrapped, deliberately entangled in a scandal that would mean he would have to marry her. She could not understand why Lord Harrow would have pushed Felicity into doing such a thing.
Surely it was not worth the gossip and scandal to secure a marriage for Felicity to Sebastian? “But why on earth would your father want you to do this? Surely he knew that a terrible scandal would break out, and your family name would be ruined?”
Felicity flinched. “I know I am ruined now,” she said. “But he was intending to force Sebastian to marry me. He refused, of course, and now, possibly as we speak, they are fighting a duel!”
“A duel?” Isabella thought her heart might burst at the shock of the news. “Who? Where?”
“Sebastian and my father,” Felicity replied, beginning to sob again. “My father demanded that Sebastian marry me, and he said no, presumably because he clearly is in love with you. My father demanded satisfaction, and they are meeting this morning at dawn. I am sure that one of them will be killed. It is all too terrible, and it is all my fault!”
Isabella felt a surge of panic. “But we must stop them!” She jumped to her feet. Perhaps if she hurried now, she could make it to the duelling site in time. She was not sure exactly what she would do when she got there, but she knew that she could not sit idly in the house, doing nothing, when the man she loved was in danger of losing his life, and all for a lie.
Felicity grabbed her hand. “Isabella, there is more. You must know the whole truth before you do something rash.”
“Well, tell me quickly then!” Isabella demanded. With every moment that passed, Sebastian was in danger of grave injury or even death, and she could not bear to think of it. She knew that she had to do something.
“My father was involved somehow in Sebastian’s father’s death,” Felicity blurted out. “I do not know all the details of it, but I found a letter in his room, and he told me that he had betrayed them all and allowed the ship to be captured for his own ends, then allowed Sebastian’s father to take the blame. He has been trying to make out that your father was the guilty party, I think.”
She took a breath. “I am so sorry, Isabella. I do not know all the details of everything that happened. But I know that my father has done many bad things over the years in an attempt to make money, and I should never have allowed myself to get so mixed up in his scheming.”
Isabella’s heart was pounding now. She knew that she had to do something to stop the duel, but as she stared at Felicity, she could not believe what the girl she thought was her friend had done. “Felicity, how could you have done all these terrible things?”
“He is my father, and he has such power over me. I felt like I did not have a choice. And also, I was so jealous, Isabella. So jealous and so unhappy. But now I know that I cannot live with having his death on my conscience. Sebastian’s death.” She heaved a huge sigh and wiped her eyes. “I am not as brave as you, but I will come with you now if you think we can stop them?”
